Poverty as a political strategy

http://www.nicaraguadispatch.com/news/2012/07/nicaraguans-need-to-know-their-rights-to-defend-them/4636

Poverty as a political strategy

By: Cristiana Guevara-Mena

In these municipal elections, and in any future elections, it is important to point out that the common Nicaraguan is not interested in voting; it’s the last thing on his or her mind. The right to exercise the vote is not an everyday worry of most Nicaraguans, since what occupies the Nicaraguan mind is daily survival. The majority of our people, according to the statistical studies of the UNPD, are unemployed or underemployed.

The poorest citizen, according to these statistics, is surviving on less than one dollar a day. The great majority of nationals that live with this type of offensive and inhumane budget have to maintain a family of at least four or more people. Naturally, with this amount of money, it’s not possible to have a dignified household, decent wardrobe, or food three times a day, not to mention elementary needs such as access to education and good health care.

If we analyze the power strategy of the government, we’ll realize that this situation of hunger and unemployment is created in an evil and intentional manner in order to avoid at all costs the birth of new leadership that would create a counterweight to the government. This strategy has as an objective: The continuance of power for the administration, in turn, based on popular poverty. As part of these consequences, we have the evident mediocrity of our primary, secondary, and higher education throughout the country.

This type of unhealthy and perverted government makes a lot of sense for the administration, in turn, for it is the people with a good share of free time and relative economic stability that have the space to analyze the country’s political situation for the purpose of creating ideas and protesting.

We must understand that the main secret of a totalitarian government, whether left or right, consists in weakening the public spirit to the point of having it lose complete interest in the ideas and principles that have made, and can make, revolutions. This spirit results in the weakening and stultification of society, reducing its interest in education and culture, and trading its interest in those things for interest in spectacles, vices, and mass media.

In Nicaragua, it’s not needed to burn entire libraries, as they did in Argentina; because of the lack of sufficient interest in reading and knowledge, it becomes unnecessary to go to such lengths. This strengthens the vicious circle of the entry of one dictator, and the exit of another.

The lack of interest in the accumulation and diffusion of knowledge makes us, as a people, easy to manipulate, because we don’t know anything other than what they give us or what we’re told. Therefore, the people’s consciences and wills become easily manageable with any royalty or giveaway, because we’re not used to questioning the “why” of things.

As Nicaraguans, we’re a people that demands democracy when we don’t even worry about what it consists of, let alone what it’s for. We strongly require the compliance of our rights when we don’t even bother knowing them, or even knowing what they consist of. We must understand that this indifference towards knowledge weakens our character as a people and subtracts independence of thought.

In that same way, since we’re not interested in knowing what our rights as human beings are, or why we have them, or what they’re for, we’re not interested in voting as a constitutional right, because in the end, what the great majority of Nicaraguans think is: “Since the government doesn’t feed me, then, why should I vote?”

With this mentality, we think that if the president in turn builds a school for us, or paves a street by our house, that we should be thankful (because the Nicaraguan is thankful), and we don’t think that it’s their duty, and that’s the reason why we pay taxes.

It’s because of this reality that I dare to state that Nicaragua, at this pace, will never prosper, youth will never be the future, and the salvation of this people will slip further away each time, because we are part of an indifferent generation that becomes more stupefied every day. The youth prefers to give in to the triviality of empty entertainment, rather than read a book.

At this rate, we can verify that, as a people, we’re sinking everyday into a hole which we’ll never be able to get out of, unless we wake up. It’s not possible to think of the right to vote as a human right when we don’t even have a decent quality of life. It’s expected that, because of the fact that Nicaraguans are nothing more than a brain-drowsy people, that it’s not possible to give a different opinion if our educational and cultural system is deficient. Besides, we apparently have purchasable consciences which can be purchased with any prebend, for there is no other form of survival. At this rate, this country sentenced to never prosper and to never know any better, because we are inheriting this vicious circle from generation to generation.